Ira Woodhttp://irawood.com
Author · Lecturer · Radio PersonalityFri, 01 Jul 2016 17:27:14 +0000en-UShourly1The History of Psychedelicshttp://irawood.com/the-history-of-psychedelics/
http://irawood.com/the-history-of-psychedelics/#respondFri, 01 Jul 2016 17:22:21 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1136For many people today, the mere mention of psychedelic drugs brings to mind a clichéd backdrop of naked hippies, tie-dyed t-shirts, graffiti-painted school buses, R. Crumb comics, kaleidoscopic posters, and outdoor concerts featuring musicians such as the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and above all The Grateful Dead. All of that is perfectly accurate, of course, but as today’s guest tells us, a limited view of an underground phenomenon that had a huge impact on American culture.

Jesse Jarnow is a writer, a musician, and a DJ on WFMU in Jersey City, New Jersey, the longest running freeform radio station in the United States. His new book HEADS: A Biography of Psychedelic America, tells the story of psychedelic drugs and how successive generations of users have shaped the computer business, the art world, politics, rock music, film, natural childbirth, and arguably the entire American counter-culture.

The Lowdown with Ira Wood, Tuesdays at 12:30 PM and Saturdays at 5:30 AM on WOMR-FM, a Pacifica Radio affiliate station. Streaming and podcasts on WOMR.ORG.

]]>http://irawood.com/the-history-of-psychedelics/feed/0Why Young Men Fail with Stanford Psychologist Phil Zimbardohttp://irawood.com/demise-guys-phil-zimbardo/
http://irawood.com/demise-guys-phil-zimbardo/#respondFri, 01 Jul 2016 17:09:54 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1129If you know a young man who is failing, who’s having problems in school or holding a job or living on his own; whose real passions in life are friends or sex or sports but video games and porn…this show will tell you why.

My guest today is Dr. Philip Zimbardo, an emeritus professor of psychology at Standford University. He warns us that many young men today are being left behind; that in today’s society an entire generation of guys all over the world have basically removed themselves, emotionally and physically, from the real world and prefer to live their lives online.

The Lowdown with Ira Wood, Tuesdays at 12:30 PM and Saturdays at 5:30 AM on WOMR-FM, a Pacifica Radio affiliate station. Streaming and podcasts on WOMR.ORG.

]]>http://irawood.com/demise-guys-phil-zimbardo/feed/0Sharks and Fishers and Tickshttp://irawood.com/sharks-fishers-ticks/
http://irawood.com/sharks-fishers-ticks/#respondFri, 01 Jul 2016 16:05:45 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1120Call me squeamish and behind the times. Call me chicken hearted and anti business, but in a world in which death and disfigurement are commonplace topics on the evening news, I’ve been having a hard time getting used to Cape Cod’s love affair with the Great White Shark, a fast swimming, meat eating apex predator that averages sixteen feet long, weighs up to twenty four hundred pounds, and grows razor sharp, serrated teeth as needed.

But have you been to Chatham lately? The little town that’s proudly branding itself the Home of the Great White? Have you visited the Sharks in the Park public art display, dotted with humorous and colorful cutouts of animals that snatch baby seals in their jaws, drag them underwater to drown and drain their blood, then let them float to the surface so others sharks can swim up and take turns feeding?

I certainly don’t blame Chatham. The executive director of their Chamber of Commerce seemed to be as surprised as anyone. “We became shark city the first year they started tagging sharks,” she said. “Every time there was a sighting or a tagging there would be news trucks. We had traffic jams. There’d be buses of tourists.”

At first I wondered why. Sharks love to eat seals because they’re bodies are fifty percent fat, but so is mine, and nothing would draw me to a place where simply taking a swim on a hot summers day could potentially risk laceration and dismemberment. But then until I realized that’s its not about me at all. It’s about the sublime luck of being there at the exact right moment when I might get to see someone else get maimed…which certainly speaks to the character of a country whose favorite sport is noted for giving its athletes concussions and whose national legislative body steadfastly defends the right of angry mental patients to buy automatic rifles.

Face it, people love dangerous mascots. The recent tragedy at Disney World notwithstanding, I do not see the University of Florida changing its Gator logo any time soon. We have the Detroit Tigers, the Detroit Lions, and right down the road in Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan, whose mascot is the Wolverine, a savage predatory weasel that can crack the bones of an animal ten times its size and mark its territory with a foul smelling yellow fluid from its anal glands. Hey, right about now the Great White Shark is starting to sound pretty civilized, you think?

The trouble, of course, is that every town on the Cape needs business, but we can’t all use the Great White. So I want to suggest a few others.

What about the Fisher Cat, a ferocious little mammal that’s making its comeback on the Cape? It’s actually related to the wolverine and sometimes likened to an angry ferret. They’re tough enough to take on a porcupine, dangerous enough to threaten small children, and they scream like wild birds having their throats cut. Try it on for size. Your Town, Home of the Fisher Cat.

If that doesn’t turn you on, what about Coyotes, which every native Cape Codder knows by now are properly called Coy Wolves, because they’re a hybrid of the eastern wolf, the western wolf, the western coyote and get this, dog, as well. I think we’re missing a real marketing opportunity, here, people.

Let the people in the cities and suburbs complain about them in garbage cans and parks. We should embrace them. After all, how many animals can turn a quiet off-season evening into a scene out of The Hound of the Baskervilles? And imagine if you will, the great logo: a coy wolf winking at you coquettishly on a tee-shirt? Once again: Try it on for size. Your Town, Home of the Coy Wolf.

But, of course, I’ve been saving the best for last because really, the most dangerous animal we have is the tick. Think about the damage they cause. Think about the numbers of lives affected. Think about the fact that they feast on blood. Frankly they scare me more than Great Whites, Fisher Cats, and Coy Wolves, put together. And maybe the best part is that elusive take-home factor that Cape businesses crave, because while you know it when you’re bitten by any of the others, a tick bite received while on vacation might not be evident until long after you’re back home…a chilling reminder of dangerous Cape Cod. I think this one’s a winner, don’t you: Your Town, Home of the Tick.

]]>http://irawood.com/sharks-fishers-ticks/feed/0To Pee or Not to Peehttp://irawood.com/pee-not-pee/
http://irawood.com/pee-not-pee/#respondFri, 01 Apr 2016 19:44:28 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1099When I was growing up, the holy book in my family was not the bible, but a thin, dog-eared, self-published paperback titled, Where to Go When You Have to Go, a compendium of public toilets in Manhattan. It listed all the obvious places–train stations, libraries, department stores–as well as friendly restaurants and hotels, and also the obscure, like the Central Park Zoo and the Christian Science Reading Room. New York City was a pretty hard place to find a place to pee back then, and to quote from an article in the Times, which came out, not coincidently, on Saint Patrick’s Day–a day when hundreds of thousands of beer bloated tourists are careening through the streets begging for bathrooms–today “New York City is one of the most public bathroom resistant places in the world.” Strange indeed for a town that attracts fifty seven million tourists a year and has two hundred and twelve Starbucks in Manhattan alone, not all of which offer restrooms, not even to paying customers. Large European cities are far more understanding, even Paris, where you don’t even have to speak French to access their fully automatic and self cleaning street corner toilets.

On the day before the New York Times article appeared, there was a story in our own Cape Cod Times, reporting that the Cape Cod Economic Development Council advised the Barnstable County Board of Commissioners to close the one and only public toilet facility on the MidCape Highway Eastbound, the one between Exits Six and Seven, the one where Cape Codders always slow down in case there’s a lurking state trooper, the one that elicits the same conversation between parents and children in millions of cars every summer as they drive over the Sagamore Bridge. The conversation that goes something like this: “Can you make it to the Rest Area in Hyannis or do we have to stop so you can pee in the woods?”

According to the article, the Chairwoman of the council, advised the Commissioners to redirect the public toilet money to more grants. Not long ago, one of those very grants was given to the Cape Cod Commission for Smart Land Use Scenarios for Wastewater Planning, which begs the very question. Is peeing in the bushes really a Smart Land Use Scenario for Wastewater Planning? The article quotes her as describing the rest area as ‘gross and disgusting,’ to which I would pose another question, Compared to what?

Has anybody not had to hold a handkerchief over their noses as they waded into a putrid field of tissues and toilet paper when they stopped at one the useless parking areas along Route Six praying to find a place to relieve themselves?

Needless to say the alternative is pulling off the highway, sometimes quite a ways off, to find a McDonald’s or convenience store rest room to sneak into, or in the alternative, buy something you neither need or want. When I was commuting to Boston my back seat was littered with candy bars, newspapers, energy drinks, air fresheners, and maps that I didn’t want but had to buy in order to get access to the bathroom. Here’s a tip: On Exit Thirteen there’s a Gulf Station that sells bananas. They’re always rotten but they’re only a buck apiece.

Although the Board decided to table the issue for two weeks before telling the state that the County was “exit(ing) the bathroom maintenance business,” one nitwit commissioner proposed leasing the property to a Dunkin Donuts. Brilliant. So now we can fill our bladder with coffee in the spot where we used to drain it.

On it’s website the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment says it’s mission is to promote a healthy community through disease prevention and environmental protection. Well, somebody ought to tell the commissioners that denying people a public place to take a leak contributes to urinary tract infection, cystitis, and kidney failure. That spending billions on water quality management runs contrary to forcing people to pee but the woods.
Sure, we can get off Route Six. There are even apps for that. Sit or Squat. Where to Wee. Bathroom Scout. They all check your GPS and send you down local roads to find a toilet. But here’s a tip from me. Try 3195 Main Street in

Barnstable. That’s the address of the Barnstable County Commissioners, just in you’ve got three screaming children who need a bathroom.

And if they should ask you if you’re there to support getting rid of the toilets on Route Six, tell ‘em. Hell No. We have to go.

]]>http://irawood.com/pee-not-pee/feed/0Pagan Kennedy on Inventologyhttp://irawood.com/pagan-kennedy-inventology/
http://irawood.com/pagan-kennedy-inventology/#respondFri, 01 Apr 2016 19:31:29 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1091I wonder if you’ve ever invented anything? My guess is that you have. That at some point you were faced with an arduous task and you said to yourself: There’s got to be a better way to do this, and after awhile you rigged up some contraption that did just that. I’m sure you don’t consider yourself an inventor, some fuss-budget laboring over a work-bench in the garage, but the fact is that today, more than at any other time in history, we all have a shot at being a part of making things that improve our lives.

My guest today is Pagan Kennedy, the author of a new book called Inventology: How We Dream Up Things That Change the World, and in it she not only tells us about the peculiar beginnings of life-altering inventions, whether born out of a junk-pile, or by accident, or from science fiction, but how today inventors get their ideas. If you’ve ever participated in a Kickstarter campaign or given feedback on a smart phone app, chances you’re already part of inventing something, and the astounding news is that you don’t need a degree from MIT. Some of today’s most useful inventions are coming from outsiders.

Pagan Kennedy is the former Innovation columnist for the New York Times Magazine, and the award-winning author of ten books.

The Lowdown with Ira Wood, Tuesdays at 12:30 PM and Saturdays at 5:30 AM on WOMR-FM, a Pacifica Radio affiliate station. Streaming and podcasts on WOMR.ORG.

]]>http://irawood.com/pagan-kennedy-inventology/feed/0Secrets of a Cape Cod Trailer Parkhttp://irawood.com/secrets-of-a-cape-cod-trailer-park/
http://irawood.com/secrets-of-a-cape-cod-trailer-park/#respondFri, 01 Apr 2016 19:13:02 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1085It’s not surprising, given the economy, but trailer parks are one of the hottest areas of the housing market. More than 20 million people, 6% of the U.S. population, live in 8.5 million mobile homes. Yeah, there’s that image problem, but they’re especially popular with downsizing seniors and millennials looking for home ownership. They point out the affordable prices, their appreciation for tiny houses, having yards of their own, and not having to apartment share walls with noisy neighbors. So what’s it’s like living in a trailer park? One long-time resident dispels a lot of the stereotypes and introduces a new possibility for affordable community.

The Lowdown with Ira Wood, Tuesdays at 12:30 PM and Saturdays at 5:30 AM on WOMR-FM, a Pacifica Radio affiliate station. Streaming and podcasts on WOMR.ORG.

]]>http://irawood.com/secrets-of-a-cape-cod-trailer-park/feed/0Family Feud: Bernie versus Hillaryhttp://irawood.com/1076-2/
http://irawood.com/1076-2/#respondFri, 01 Apr 2016 19:06:03 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1076More delegates can be won on Super Tuesday than on any other single day of the primary calendar and Cape Codders, usually a taciturn bunch licking the wounds of winter at this time of year, are throwing mud instead of sand. It seems we’re involved in a family feud in which left-leaning activists who’ve linked arms on most issues, electing a progressive congressional delegation, changing public policy on the environment, have fiercely different ideas about what their presidential candidates should represent: Change versus the status quo, pragmatism versus idealism; in short, Bernie versus Hillary. In the studio today are Martina Jackson for Cape Cod for Hillary Clinton and Bruce Taub from Cape Codders for Bernie Sanders.

The Lowdown with Ira Wood, Tuesdays at 12:30 PM and Saturdays at 5:30 AM on WOMR-FM, a Pacifica Radio affiliate station. Streaming and podcasts on WOMR.ORG.

]]>http://irawood.com/1076-2/feed/0Does Trumpism Equal Fascism?http://irawood.com/1073-2/
http://irawood.com/1073-2/#respondFri, 01 Apr 2016 19:01:55 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1073Donald Trump’s run for the Republican nomination has proven that voters are furious. His rants clearly speak for middle class whites that feel non-whites are the recipients of all the privilege they have lost. But are his violent tirades (NYT on 2/23: ‘I’d Like to Punch Him in the Face’) encouraging his followers to beat up protestors reminiscent of Hitler’s rise to power in Weimar Germany? Is he calling for the creation of Storm Troopers, the kind Hitler used to purge his rallies? Chip Berlet is an investigative journalist specializing right-wing social and political movements and trends in the United States and our interview begins with this question: Is Donald Trump a fascist?

The Lowdown with Ira Wood, Tuesdays at 12:30 PM and Saturdays at 5:30 AM on WOMR-FM, a Pacifica Radio affiliate station. Streaming and podcasts on WOMR.ORG.

]]>http://irawood.com/1073-2/feed/0Homeless on Cape Codhttp://irawood.com/homeless-cape-cod/
http://irawood.com/homeless-cape-cod/#respondFri, 01 Apr 2016 18:47:47 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1067By now the dark side of Cape Cod is a cliché. The underbelly of America’s favorite summer resort is rife with drug addiction, unemployment, and the impossible cost of housing. But few issues strike fear in our hearts as much as homelessness and many Cape Codders know full well we could someday be living out of cars behind the Mall, in motels on Route 28 or worse, in the homeless camps in the Hyannis woods. Although we’re told the route to homelessness is found in drugs and alcohol and mental illness, we know it can begin with divorce or losing a job, bankruptcy, eviction, personal injury…or simply a streak of very bad luck. Today’s guest is Greg Bar, the facility director at NOAH, an emergency access shelter for the homeless in Hyannis, who reminds us that his clients could be any one of us.

The Lowdown with Ira Wood, Tuesdays at 12:30 PM and Saturdays at 5:30 AM on WOMR-FM, a Pacifica Radio affiliate station. Streaming and podcasts on WOMR.ORG.

]]>http://irawood.com/homeless-cape-cod/feed/0Don’t Call Them Junkieshttp://irawood.com/dont-call-them-junkies/
http://irawood.com/dont-call-them-junkies/#respondFri, 01 Apr 2016 18:36:18 +0000http://terriermulti.info/irawood/?p=1061America’s attitudes about heroin addiction are changing. The ‘habit’ that was once called a crime is now a called a disease. The drug den that was once thought to exist in the inner city is now your neighborhood. The addicts we knew as junkies are now likely to be your friends, your neighbors, or your children and we’re and starting to realize that way to effectively deal with addiction needs to involve the entire community instead of just the police. Today’s guest is a nurse who worked the streets of Boston for 25 years. He talks about changes in methods of recovery, similarities between the AIDS epidemic and the heroin epidemic and why the most progressive ideas in the fight against opiate addiction are coming from the addicts themselves.

The Lowdown with Ira Wood, Tuesdays at 12:30 PM and Saturdays at 5:30 AM on WOMR-FM, a Pacifica Radio affiliate station. Streaming and podcasts on WOMR.ORG.